


He Should’ve Stayed Dead

by SummerStormFlower



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Bad Parents, Child Abandonment, Gen, Homelessness, raining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 14:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20437739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerStormFlower/pseuds/SummerStormFlower
Summary: Lloyd is sad. Kai sits outside with him in the rain at 4 am.





	He Should’ve Stayed Dead

Kai doesn’t know why he wakes up. He’s not nearly done sleeping, and neither is the sun, if the dark sky is anything to go off of. Maybe the sound of the rain woke him up. 

Groggily, Kai climbs out of bed, careful not to wake the others. Zane is flat on his back and stiff as a board; he never rolls around or anything. Cole’s snoring away, one leg dangling over the side of his bed, and his face shoved against the wall. Jay is curled up with a teddy bear, precariously close to the edge of his bed. And Lloyd... Lloyd is nowhere to be seen. 

With a goal to find him, Kai heads out of the room. He gets himself a cup of water from the kitchen, and starts looking. Lloyd’s not in the hallway, or the bathroom, or the living room. Just as Kai’s about to freak out, he sees a figure through the window. 

Hunched over on the doorstep is Lloyd, in the rain, in nothing but his pyjamas. 

Kai goes outside, a scolding on his lips, until he hears Lloyd humming. He stands behind Lloyd, just listening, for a moment. 

He sounds sad. 

Kai drapes his red blanket over Lloyd’s shoulders, then sits beside him. Lloyd doesn’t look at him. 

“What are you doing out here?” he asks. 

Lloyd is quiet. He pulls Kai’s blanket closer to him, his shivers stopping.

Kai wonders if Lloyd’s going to say anything at all. 

Then Lloyd whispers, “When I lived at Darkley’s, my dad used to visit me.” He rearranges himself until the blanket is covering all of him. “Sometimes. And then he’d leave.”

Kai feels a pang of hurt for his baby brother. (They may not be blood, but after all they’ve been through, they’ve become family). He understands Lloyd better than most, having felt the pain of abandonment as well. He can’t help but feel anger towards Lord Garmadon. 

“Remember how Darkley kicked me out?” Lloyd asks, “That was three years after my dad’s last visit. I was seven.”

Kai can imagine what that was like; never knowing if your parent would come back. That indescribable loneliness. Forgetting what they look like. 

Lloyd’s face contorts with anguish and he looks like he’s about to cry. “I had nowhere to go.” Kai’s heart breaks at the crack in his voice. “So I’d sit by a trash can and sing myself to sleep.”

Kai pictures Lloyd, so young and small, all by himself on the streets, and feels a wave of sadness wash over him. 

He wraps his arm around Lloyd. Lloyd leans into him.

He doesn’t have to say it. Lloyd knows he has a family now. He knows Kai loves him. He knows he has a home now. But there’s a part of him that’s still hurting, that’s always gonna hurt, and Lloyd needs to be outside in the rain at 4 am with someone to hold onto him.

“He should’ve stayed dead,” Lloyd spits bitterly, burying his face in Kai’s shoulder. Kai combs a hand through his hair, and Lloyd can’t keep his voice steady. “It would’ve been easier if he’d stayed dead.”

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I wrote this. Not bad for a sleep-deprived me at 5 in the morning. Let me know what you think, I appreciate readers sharing their thoughts.


End file.
